The latest joke in New Jersey is the increase of 13 cents of the state’s minimum wage. This only goes to show the obedience of politicians to the corporate structure. This is an insult to injury. Here are more crumbs for the peasants.

There is a national and N.J. campaign for a living wage. In reality, if the minimum wage were to increase as it does for business people and the top 1 percent, the wage would be $22 and hour.

That sentiment has led to the rise of candidates such as Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey legislator who won a hard-fought election for a seat in House of Representatives with an economic-justice campaign that talked not about raising the minimum wage, but about the need for a living wage. Refusing to soft-pedal her determination to address “the gap between the wealthiest and those most in need,” Coleman says “the equivocation of Democrats has created confusion for people. People need to know what their choices are and why.”

Earlier this year, a long-standing “Fight for 15” campaign in Seattle was victorious after the city council unanimously voted to impose the highest minimum wage in the U.S. at $15 an hour. Fight for 15 are hopeful that San Francisco will commit to the increase when the proposal is voted on in November. In Los Angeles, the city council is pushing to raise the minimum hourly wage for employees in large hotels. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, is under pressure from the living wage movement in Chicago and is aiming to raise the minimum there to $13 per hour. In New York, Oakland, Washington D.C., San Diego and San Jose there are active and prominent campaigns pushing at the city and state levels to raise wages for the very poorest.

The living-wage campaigns have sought inspiration from a national Fight for 15 in one particular low-paid sector of particular cultural significance — fast food. The SEIU (Service Employee International Union) has led a campaign to force McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s to raise their wages.

Laurie Ehlbeck, the New Jersey director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said she’s spoken to many of the group’s 8,000 to 9,000 members who run small businesses.

“They’re putting on hold any hiring until they see how they recover from this increase,” she said. “So rather than lost jobs, at this point I would say there’s no growth.”

Ehlbeck also said the unknown amount of the wage increase every year — because it depends on the index — contributes to unpredictability, which makes planning a challenge.

She is obviously an agent for the wealthy in the class war. Look at it this way:

If you live in an apartment for 20 years, your rent goes from $350 (1994) to $700, and one is still making $10 an hour. That is a zero increase in wage against a 100 percent-plus increase in rent. This is a contributing factor to the eroding paycheck and the race to the bottom. One-third of the homeless are working families.

Ms. Ehlbeck is out of touch with reality, influencing our legislators and helping to impose powers of the 1 percent. Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has noted that one executive makes in four hours in one morning than what most workers make in one year in the entire franchise. Should we boo-hoo for the poor rich man who has it all? Right now we have a system of wage slavery for all.

The so-called political left/Progressives (i.e. the Democrats) are not remotely left wing. Neoliberal economic policies, spying on citizens, warmonger foreign policy, supportive of Saudi and Israeli regimes, heavily lobbied in Congress are pretty much the same policies as Republicans.

I hope people join the campaign for a living wage — $15 would be fine now, but we must get what we deserve and that is $22 an hour minimum wage.

I was in Copenhagen, Denmark. People who work for 7-11 or Burger King get $22 hour, 6 weeks vacation, retirement benefits and free education.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated: “We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement and we are willing to fight for it. We believe in science ... and we are willing to fight for it. We believe that the Internet shouldn’t be rigged to benefit big corporations ... and we will fight for it. We believe that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty ... and we are willing to fight for it. We will fight for it. Let me add to that we believe that fast-food workers deserve a livable wage and when they take to picket lines we are proud to fight along side of them.”